THE BURGENLAND BUNCH NEWS -No. 86B
DEDICATED TO AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN BURGENLAND FAMILY HISTORY
(issued biweekly by
August 15, 2000

This third section of the 3 section newsletter contains sources of Current
Austrian News (also mentions "The Lake", a novel which has the Neusiedler See
as its locale), some Comments Concerning Duplicate Burgenland Records, an
article on Linguistic Name Changes, correspondence concerning "Die Amerika
Wanderung der Burgenländer" (also mentioned in Hap Anderson's trip report-BB
News No. 86), a progress report on the Digitization of St. Peterfa Church
Records, Gilly Name Origin- Switzerland and Member Changes.

CURRENT NEWS OF AUSTRIA (from Fritz Königshofer)

The Austrian Embassy in the USA runs a web site http://www.austria.org. It
is included in the list of the Burgenland Bunch's useful links maintained by
Anna Kresh. I would like to draw BB members' attention to two periodicals
with news on Austria which can be read on this web site, namely Austrian
Information which reports on general news with an angle to what might
interest readers in the United States, and Economic News. The web site also
offers a selection of downloadable videos, among them a beautiful one
presenting the Burgenland.

The Austrian Cultural Institute of New York also has a web site, at
www.austriaculture.net. The Institute issues a periodic newsletter called
Austria Kultur. You can find the current issue by selecting Austria Kultur
Online which then also provides a link to Back Issues.

It might interest BB members that the current issue contains a review of the
book "The Lake" by Gerhard Roth which has recently been published in an
English translation (Ariadne Press, Riverside, California, 2000, 165 pp.,
$15.50). The book was a bestseller in Austria when it was first published in
1995. The story plays around the Neusiedler See, is somewhat based in
Podersdorf, but includes venues all around the lake. Gerhard Roth is a good
friend of mine. We both worked at the Computer Center of Graz in the early
1970s. Gerhard is an exceptionally astute observer, and, while the story is
entirely fiction, one can assume that he saw what he describes. However,
make no mistake, this is serious, modern literature and for full benefit
requires a well-read reader.

As I finally made it through all the newsletters I had missed during my
vacation in Austria, I have some comments on Robert Loerzel's trip report in
issue no. 83B.

The duplicate parish records were started in Hungary between 1826 and 1828.
In contrast, in Styria the same thing happened a bit later, in the 1830s.
>From those times onwards, a parish had to maintain two books of vital events,
the original and the duplicate. The best I can gather is that the duplicates
were always closed at the end of each year, and submitted to the diocesan
offices for reference and safekeeping. Therefore, the duplicates of the
rom.-cath. parishes of what is now southern Burgenland were sent to and kept
by the diocesan ordinariate in Szombathely.

Sometime in the 20th century, the Hungarian Government declared the old vital
records (up to the introduction of civil recording in October 1895) as state
property. Parishes and dioceses had to submit the matrikels to the National
Archives in Budapest, where LDS was able to film them. Since the
centralization of the records happened after the breakup of the dual
monarchy, the original parish and civil records of the Burgenland area were
out of reach for the Hungarian authorities, and therefore only the duplicates
(from 1828) as originally kept by the dioceses of Szombathely and Gyõr, and
the duplicates of the civil records, were available to be collected in
Budapest (and later be filmed). This explains why the LDS was able to film
original matrikels of parishes that had remained part of new Hungary, while
only duplicates could be filmed of areas now part of other countries, and
only to the extent where the diocesan offices had remained in Hungary. In
cases where both village and diocesan office were now outside Hungary, no
vital records are available anymore within Hungary.

Duplicate records will typically only have later marginal entries when the
subsequent vital event still happened in the same year (before the duplicate
was sent off to the diocesan office). This is the case when a new-born child
died within the same year. However, for places that remained in Hungary,
like Pinkamindszent, the LDS has films of the original matrikels which then
can obviously contain marginal entries made many years later such as re
marriages, death or name changes (such as magyarization of the name).

I could not agree more with Robert and you (Gerry B.) that it can be very
rewarding to access the original matrikels for the reasons given in Robert's
trip report and your editorial remarks. As you say, this can, e.g., be an
avenue to find out about the father of an illegitimate child, in case this
father had later come forward, and/or the legitimatization of child births by
later marriage of the parents.

Now on to a second subject, the identity of the various places Miske.
Vásárosmiske is a place in the district of Sárvár, Vas county. It also had
the German name Mischendorf, but is a different place from the Mischendorf
that is now in Burgenland (though pre-1921, both these villages were in Vas
county). Since Vásárosmiske is still in Hungary, it naturally cannot be in
Albert's village list. Please also note that Répcsemicske, now Strebersdorf,
has a different spelling, i.e., Micske rather than Miske.

Next to the village identity problem, the question that arises most often is
the spelling of the family name. Do the Hungarian, German, Slavic spellings
of the family name refer to the same family? This becomes even cloudier when
the American spelling is changed either because of the umlaut or Hungarian/
Croatian diacritical marks, English phonetic translation or the linguistic
whim of some immigration official. Another stumbling block is to misinterpret
what is written, i. e. not understanding the foreign language conventions
such as spousal suffixes (the "ne" -Hungarian or "nak"- Slavic, meaning wife
of the previously mentioned male). The LDS computer files contain a number of
inaccurate name spellings containing these suffixes.

The LDS genealogy software (Personal Ancestral File or PAF-an LDS trademark)
provides space for two given names and two surnames as well as a title. I use
this extra space to record American spelling as well as Austro/Hungarian
spelling for my families. For instance one grandmother is listed as
"Hedwig"-"Hattie" "Muehl"-"Mühl." I use notes to explain other spelling
variances. By paying attention to these variances you keep the records
straight. Albert Schuch responds to such a question from Connie Wright:

Connie writes:

<< A second cousin of mine ... lists my g-g-g-grandparents as Janos Mann,
Katalinnak Holenios, Jstven Schali, and Marianak Piezt. I understand that
Janos is the Hungarian equivalent of Johann or John. I am wondering if the
other 3 names are Hungarian, and whether you know their German or English
equivalents. Specifically, I am wondering whether Holenios could be the same
as Hollenitsch/Hollentisch. >>

Albert answers:
"-nak" is just a grammatical suffix. So you have to delete "-nak" to get the
first name. In your case, the correct names are Maria (Mary) and Katalin
(Kathryn).

The first name "Jstven" is not spelled correctly. It has to be "Istvan" (with
a diacritical mark above the 'a'). The equivalent name in English is Stephen.

The surname "Mann" looks OK, but the other three surnames look rather strange
and are probably not spelled correctly. With respect to this, Holenios could
indeed be the same as Hollenitsch. Hollentisch is less likely, because many
surnames end with "-itsch". This (Slavic) suffix is
often spelled "-ics", and Holenics could easily be read as Holenios.

Sometimes I feel like I'm meeting myself coming around the corner. I must
occasionally repeat myself in order to make a point, provide credit for the
work of others or explain why we have a Burgenland Bunch.

In 1993 I purchased a copy of the book "DIE AMERIKA WANDERUNG DER
BURGENLÄNDER" on a trip to Güssing. When I found my grandfather mentioned on
page 213, I was hooked. Later in talking to the author I found that he was
very interested in identifying the first emigrant from each village. Since
much of his individual immigrant material came from family sources, I told
him of the possibilities inherrent in the US 1910 & 1920 census and the LSD
microfilm records. My original idea was to search those sources and develop a
data base of Burgenland emigrants. Frank Teklits and I originally set out to
do just that. We soon found we had a tiger by the tail. Two people alone
couldn't possibly do the job and the idea of a Burgenland group began to
glimmer and take form as other correspondents joined us.

Thus, "DIE AMERIKA WANDERUNG DER BURGENLÄNDER" more than any other work,
prompted me to establish the Burgenland Bunch (BB). The book, written in
German, authored by Hofrat Dr. Walter Dujmovits, president of the
Burgenländische Gemeinschaft (BG), and published in 1975 was reissued in
paper back by Desch-Drexler in 1992. It is the first and to my knowledge, the
only book which addresses this subject in its entirety (portions are repeated
in "nach Amerika" -the 1992 Burg Güssing "emigration festival" publication
and a few other local publications). Prior to 1975, no one had previously
written the complete story of Burgenland emigration, although it is mentioned
in Professor Andrew Burghardt's English language book "Borderland", 1962. Dr.
Dujmovits summarized not only what was available at the time, but also what
he had uncovered through research and correspondence. While it is unfortunate
that it has not been published in English, it is the starting point for what
I hope may some day be a complete history of this emigration. I don't know
how many immigrants the BB have identified todate. I do know we have over
3000 surnames listed in our surname list and obviously many belong to
multiple emigrants (three or more on average might give us nine to twelve
thousand thousand individuals?) We know there were at least forty thousand
Burgenlanders who entered the US in the period 1880-1924 alone. If one fourth
returned (an educated but published guess), we may still have perhaps twenty
thousand to find!

A treasured dream would be an English language version of Dr. Dujmovits' book
complete with BB surname and village lists and appropriate archive articles.
Perhaps someday, the BB and BG membership may be such that the combined
membership would support the printing of such a publication in both German
and English. A magnificent tribute to our ancestors!

The BB with 550 members and the 2000 page archive of the 86 BB newsletters,
as well as the Burgenländische Gemeinschaft with 4000 members and their
newsletter archives (now at number 366 with approximately 5800 pages) is
indicative of the current interest and depth of this subject.

New member Donna Sheraden writes:

<<There was book published in 1975 "Die Amerika-Wanderung der Burgenlander"
written by Walter Dujmonits (not sure of the spelling) My cousin said it was
available thru: Burgenlandische Gemeinschaft HauptPlatz-No7, 7540 Gussing,
Burgenland, Austria. Are you familiar with that book? My grandfather and
uncle are mentioned in it. Mom had a copy, and I had it after her death, but
now I can't find it and would like to obtain a copy.>>

My answer: Yes-the book you mention is "Die Amerika Wanderung der
Burgenländer" and it is available from the address you quoted. Author is Dr.
Walter Dujmovits. He's president of the Burgenlandisches Gemeinschaft-their
email address is:

They will accept your check-email them, attention Frau Renate Dolmanits,
Secretary for US dollar cost and postage. You might also ask if they have any
more copies of "Nach Amerika", a book published a few years ago with much
immigrant data from the Güssing area and lots of period pictures. Both books
of course are in German.

(Ed. Note to all members: even if you don't read German, get a copy of this
book and pass it on to your descendants. They will then never be without the
story of their immigrant ancestors. As translation software improves, it is
not difficult to translate to English, just time consuming. There are
pictures and many immigrant names.)

DIGITIZATION OF ST. PETERFA RECORDS (from Frank Teklits and others)

The membership may remember John Lavendoski's 1999 trip report. During his
trip he photographed all of the St. Peterfa church records extant at the
church and at the Diocesan Archives in Eisenstadt, quite a task. When he
returned he digitized those records and Frank Teklits agreed to translate and
summarize them. Frank recently had a few questions and in the exchange of
correspondence, we received a report of this work in process. Remembering
Frank's stupendous efforts in translating the history of Croatians in the
Burgenland, we can only admire his continued tenacious efforts on our behalf.
Those of you interested in St. Peterfa records will be blessed!

Frank's question dealt with "how sacred are the original records-can we add
to them or rearrange them?"

My answer was: "I see nothing sacred about the original lists. If someone
wants the "original", let them look it up. I see nothing wrong in doing
this, just quote the source(s) and explain the procedure used to create the
new."

Franks responds:

Thanks for your input. When John & I started this project, along with the
usual column headings, we added one called "Notes". I leave a note when I add
something to the original church entry. I have also used a specific term
(obtained) to state as an example, "Mother's surname obtained from marriage
records". Whenever I get through this initial phase, I plan on explaining the
conventions used in the generation of the digitized records, & in that
summarization, explain how to go back to the original entries with relative
ease.

It is this work I term "correlation" of birth records with the associated
marriage records, that is by far the most demanding & time consuming. To be
more specific, in the 1750 decade, I have entered 828 births that I am
attempting to correlate or match up with the marriage records. I've worked
for a solid 2 weeks, 6 or more hours each day & have
progressed to the letter P as in Paukovits. This effort is more time
consuming as each decade is entered. There has been a growth of approximately
86% in the births from the 1720 to the 1750-decade. If the progression
continues at this same rate, births in the 1790-decade could well reach 1200
or more. However this effort has been satisfying, & has already improved the
quality of the work. If all goes well, I may even complete Phase I of this
effort by the end of the year.

Later: Within the next day or two, I'll probably close out the 1750 decade
births.... Based on the effort to date, here are some numbers & observations
that may perhaps be of some interest to you.

There are a total of 1478 marriages recorded over the period 1683 to 1796, &
3583 births from 1681 through & including 1759. Approximately 120 of the
marriages do not have names of grooms or brides. Almost 500 of the births
lack the fathers' surname, or even the mother's given name. There are 20
years for which there are no marriages recorded, & 3 years where no births
were recorded. There are many years where births of only a few months of the
year are recorded.

Some impressions of the records seen to date can be summarized as follows.

Marriages recorded in the early years (1680-1690) were legible & provide good
references to the birthplaces of both the couple getting married as well as
for the witnesses. The early 1700's are a disaster, years are missing, (there
are 3 marriages recorded over the period of 1700 to 1709),writing is
atrocious, & for a few years the records appear to be garbled. The records
from the 1740's onward begin to show some attention to the need for record
keeping. However, over the years as the numbers of births & marriages began
to increase, one must assume that there was a paper shortage, as the number
of hand written entries on a single page can reach
as high as 19. Compounding that tragedy is the fact that double pages of
these extremely busy pages were photographed on a single image, which makes
what have been readable pages extremely difficult to read. It prevents
utilizing the full capability of programs such as Photo-Shop, & Acrobat. I
recommend that in the future, photographs of any church records be limited to
the contents of a single page only.

The possibility also exists that records of a few years may have been
accidentally omitted, & that some records can be photographed again on a
single page basis. The results of my efforts should prove helpful in
furthering the readability of both the records, & my interpretation of the
entries. By the way, I'm well on my way to transitioning my work from the old
to my new 733 MHz Micron PC.

Frank writes to Albert Schuch

Many thanks for your input, & I'm proceeding with the digitization as
summarized. I continue to spot check the changes made & based on them I am
confident that the bulk, if not all, of the changes made can be obtained by
searching on the word "obtained". There is a fair amount of subjectivity
involved due to the fact that there are so many marriages
with similar names. I maintain a constantly updated list of alphabetically
sorted lists of births that I use to determine if a specific birth is
associated with a given couple. If within a 20-year span a birth occurs to a
similarly named couple, e.g. (John Paukovits, & Anna), that birth entry
remains as in the original records. In some cases, I have gone back & removed
an association if similar names occur. It's this reiterative process that is
both arduous & time consuming, as well as being gratifying.

Albert writes: As regards the spelling of the surnames: Would it be help if I
sent phone books of the area? I have them for the districts Oberwart, Güssing
and Jennersdorf and I do not need them myself.

Frank answers" By all means, & please give me an idea of the costs. These
reference sources would enable me to at least select a proper spelling if I
have not been able to locate that surname in some of the phone books from my
area, or from back home. I had an interesting occurrence recently. I came
across the surname Tallian, spelled differentlyin the old church records.
Then an email arrived from a BB member in Netherland who was seeking
information about the same surname. Hence I changed the spelling to be as
shown above. I'd find these books useful, without a doubt.

Albert writes: I am also happy to report that my master's thesis (written in
1997 about the history of mining in Southern Burgenland) will be pubished in
the "Burgenländische Forschungen" series of the Provincial Archives later
this year.

Frank writes: That's an outstanding bit of news, & my congratulations. I hold
the Burgenländischen Forschungen in high regards, & am sure that your thesis
will maintain the high standards the series holds. Please let us know when
the thesis will be published, & by whom. Is there a similar outlet for
dissertations in Europe as the University of Michigan Dissertation Services
provides for every Doctoral dissertation accepted in North America? It's the
source through which I purchased Andrew Burghardt's doctoral thesis, "The
Political Geography of Burgenland". Thanks again for your thoughts, & I'll be
forwarding copies of the 1740 Decade births as soon as I complete the
associations of the 1750-decade.

GILLY NAME ORIGIN CAN BE SWITZERLAND (from Fritz Königshofer)

Fritz writes to :

With reference to the article in BB newsletter 84, the late Joe Gilly, an
early member of the Burgenland Bunch, had pursued the idea, based on family
legend, that his Gilly ancestors had been Irish, and that he descended from
an Irish soldier who had fought in the imperial army which won the battle of
Szent Gotthárd (in Austria also called the battle of Mogersdorf), and then
settled in the area.

When I tried through the records of Graz to see what they say about the many
Gillys who live in Graz, I found to my surprise that several of them had come
to Graz from Graubünden, a canton of Switzerland, in the southeast of the
country. This seems to dovetail with your findings.

NEW THIS WEEK ON GENEALOGYBULLETIN.COM
"Census Records and County Boundary Changes" by Award-winning Author, WILLIAM
DOLLARHIDE. All censuses taken since 1790 are tabulated and organized by the
counties within each state or territory. By federal precedence, a county area
in a census is the basic unit of jurisdiction in all states. (Except Alaska,
the only state without counties. Judicial districts are used as jurisdictions
for the censuses taken there.) In Louisiana, a parish is the same as a county
in other states. Even the New England states - where a town may have more
importance than a county as a genealogical resource - are all organized by
counties for each census taken. Read more...http://www.genealogybulletin.com/HTML/current.html

Steven Vass, (), Ypsilanti MI. Grandfather is from Burgenland
: VASS, Istvan. Uncle still living there Vass, Laszlo in Oberpullendorf. My
grandfather moved to Budapest and my father was born in Budapest.